Maybe Fi is short for F1

I’ll try to get this coloured tonight and hopefully that’ll be the last late strip for a while, or at least until I have to camp out in an airport again maybe…

I know I was defending Navi a couple weeks ago despite all the naysayers, but Fi is the worst executive decision in Skyward Sword this side of “Lets combine the worst part of Phantom Hourglass with the worst part of Twilight Princess and make you do it like three times”, “Let’s just copy and paste the same boss fights as much as we can get away with”, and “Let’s take the token knife-licking-psycho sexual-harassing fair-haired anime villain from everything forever and pretend he’s something new and original because he’s not Ganondorf”.

It’s like someone at Nintendo was like “Man, what we really need is a character that makes this game feel like a 60 hour tutorial”.

I found his peculiar accent insufferable. I’m fine with a British or whatever they are accent, but make anything high pitched (thrice damned chipmunks) and my ears will attempt to jump off my head to escape.

When she did her first little speech, I didn’t care. When she popped back out of the sword, I rolled my eyes at the thought of her talking some more. And when she then started spouting nonsense about happiness like it was some intensely emotional scene, I just laughed at the cheesiness. If I’d spent the last 50 hours forming some sort of bond with her character, then yeah, fine. But since the most positive emotion I had about her in the entire game was mild dislike, it was really just bad.

Did you try to have fun? Did you ever, for even a short amount of time, let yourself get off your pompous high horse and let your suspended disbelief pull you into the game? Because it seems to me like you never gave the game a true chance and played it only to feel smugly superior to the writers and animators. How could you go through life choosing to feel smug superiority/hatred rather than diving in and feeling the emotions the creators wanted you to feel?
If it’s an effort to look cool in front of everyone else, you will always be disappointing someone, so just choose to have fun without relying on other people’s judgement.
If it’s in response to very high standards, why have high standards? It only stops you from having fun at other parts in your life.
I don’t see why you could choose to be unhappy when it is so easy to be happy at almost no cost to you.

Did you ever decide to accept that some people have different opinions from yours?

I know this is like a year and a half old, but damn. That comment was really unnecessary. They didn’t develop Fi’s character at all until the last 10 minutes of the game, so it’s perfectly reasonable that someone wouldn’t bond with her as a character.

…It’s particularly easy for me to understand, since the only interactions I ever had with Fi were about my Wiimote batteries or Link’s low health. She never expressed emotion or changes in her character until the end. Even when the little robot fell for her, she didn’t really react to it. She just comes across as kind of cold and a little bit creepy when she sings.

I’m reading this comment two years after your year and a half and I had the exact same reaction. I don’t think a lot of people liked Fi or had an emotional response to her… not even dying, just refusing to talk to you anymore because you put the sword back. A good percentage of us were like, “Thank God”.

That doesn’t mean that we didn’t like the game or connect with it on an emotional level. It just means that we didn’t like or care about Fi. Hell, I felt worse for Ghirahim than I did for her and I hate him more than I thought it was possible to hate a person. I guarantee if I, as Fi’s master died, she wouldn’t run around kidnapping goddesses screaming about how she’s on a never-ending quest to save HER boyfriend. She’d just be like, “I told his ass he had half a heart left.”

If Fi’s not gonna care about me, especially once I knew what Ghirahim was and the absolute… amount of love and respect he had for Demise, she then I’m sure as hell not gonna care about her. It’s like having Kapora Gaebora following me ass around. I don’t need that in my life.

I don’t watch anime all that often, but Ghirahim was a very unique villain to me. Are there a bunch of anime series full of characters like him? Could you give me some of their names? Call me stupid or unobservant (both of which would be quite true), but I’ve never seen a character like Ghirahim in anything ever.

I’d posit Orochimaru in place of Hidan… I mean, really, how can you not see the parallels between the psycho snake who pulls swords out of his body and does the tongue thing, and… well, Ghiraham. Then again, Deidara pulls it off a bit as well… I think Naruto just likes the hell out of that kind of character.

To be fair, Ghirahim comes off as more a parody of villains like that than anything else. If you hadn’t noticed, his wardrobe is literally based off of the costumes worn by male figure skaters…just like Fi is based on female skaters + ballerinas.

The over-the-top emotional tirades? The fact that he isn’t actually designed to be physically attractive and comes off as intentionally creepy? Hair flips and cosmetics? The…tongue?

It’s the fact that he plays up the trope to the point of absolute absurdity. He’s very clown-like. His mannerisms and odd little dances don’t seem like the kind of thing to be taken with any amount of seriousness, unlike characters like Dio Brando. I can’t really see how anyone could view him as anything more than a bizarre, sexually unsettling joke…at least until later in the game.

Not saying that he’s vastly original, but I think he was presented effectively and made distinguishable from other characters that have used the outline. Wouldn’t be the first time that a popular archetype was used as a Zelda character. Miyamoto and Aonuma both went on record to state that Midna was designed as a traditional tsundere.

Yeah that’s all keeping in line with the archetype pretty much bang on. As for whether or not he’s “attractive”, the teenage girls are already drawing animu~* porn of him so I’d chalk that up to a matter of taste.

It occurred to me all too late in life that the OoT Gerudos and Ganondorf especially were actually kind of a racist caricature of Middle Eastern folks, probably because the design team didn’t know how to translate aquiline feature into their cute button-nose anime style.

As a ten year old I was just like “Oh, Gerudo have silly noses because they’re a made-up fantasy race like Zoras and Gorons” then when I found out about the controversy over the original Gerudo symbol being very clearly based on the Islamic Star and Crescent, it clicked that “Oooooh… they’re probably supposed to be Arab…” And I was suddenly very uncomfortable with a lot of things in OoT.

I actually really liked the noses on the Gerudos. Maybe that’s because I’ve always been insecure about my nose as a girl. So it was cool to see a girl who was supposed to be considered hot but also with a big nose. I think twilight princess did a better job with race as many of the main characters were not white (and also not evil), whereas in the nintendo 64 series almost every character was white, unless they were evil.

I don’t disagree that the mirror shield looks like the Islamic symbol. But it’s related to the fire temple chant in that the shield change was made before OoT hit the shelves. Anyways, I was just going off of “then when I found out about the controversy over the original…”, but if that’s not what you intended, then I apologize.

you see what happened here is the same thing that happens to the purity of all humans once they transition from the every thing is awesome or cute simply because it was made that way point in life to the cruel hard fact of what it really means. sereaously if you think about it when was the last time you change the way you feel about something was it because you truly thought differently or because someone told you other wise making you doubt your own opinion to the point of disbelief and a need of research think about it.

For me, Ghirahim is every homophobe’s worst nightmare–“He’s GAY and he’s FABULOUS and he WON’T STOP COMING ON TO ME!!” Let’s face it–wanted sexual overtures by either gender are flattering, but when you’re not into somebody and they won’t leave you alone it gets creepy. It gets even creepier when the villain appears to take an almost erotic delight in torture and mutilation of his enemies. Ghirahim isn’t sending incompetent enemies after you because he thinks you’re weak. He’s deliberately toying with you like a cat with a mouse because it turns him on to watch you struggle.

In other words, he is Rosiel from Angel Sanctuary, without the reverse-aging and the twin obsession. The reason this kind of villain is overused is because if you can get the sexual sadism juuuust right, it’s creepy as all hell. In other words, it works.

I must have a higher threshold for what counts as a “ridiculous, cartoony extreme”. Calling Ghirahim a parody seems to be in the same school of thought as Hipster “irony” (It’s not tacky! It’s Ironically tacky! No really, it is tacky). All he did was cement the “It’s like I’m really watching one of those high school animes” feeling of the game overall for me. And I mean, it’s not like he’s the only character from the game who was a completely recycled trope, Groose was pretty much cut and pasted out of Shaman King where he used to be Wooden Sword Ryu, Zelda was every genki-girl love-interest, Ghirahim is just the one I’m sick of seeing leak into everything.

I think he was about as “ridiculous, cartoony extreme” as you can have before you start to lose any air of seriousness or threat at all. Any farther and he’d be in the “stops fighting because he broke a nail” territory. As for Zelda being shallow… that’s what happens when you aren’t actually onscreen a whole awful lot, you get one or two tropes of actual characterization and the rest is plot stuff. As for Groose… he’s just the jerk comic relief guy who becomes mildly competent enough to help out in the end; Bulk and Skull from Power Rangers were doing it long before Wooden Sword Ryu.

“Self-centred, Pomadour-obsessed, eyeliner’d gang-leader antagonist to the hero, who eventually concedes his respect and joins forces to help the hero fight evil” He’s a little more similar than Bulk and Skull, all he needs is a white polyester leisure suit.

On a different note, the thing about Ryu was that his development involved getting the same superpowers the main characters had, and joining the same contest on his own merits- in the end, standing as a peer in the hero’s own category, and his antagonism was about law-flaunting and physical harm, whereas Groose is just a n ass of a romantic rival, and Groose’s development is all about helping out in a non-combat way without being a hero of legend or having magic powers or equipment.

Certainly, and people are free to like or dislike those tropes all they please. Ghirahim fans seem to think that anyone who doesn’t like the character is just all sour grapes because he isn’t Ganondorf. My personal problem is that he has no motivation beyond “Oh look at what an evil dude I am”. Ganondorf was trying to make a better world for his people and get them out of a desolate desert wasteland and went out of control with power, the Skull kid was a child having a tantrum while sitting in the driver’s seat behind a mask with incomprehensible power until it had it’s fill of him and went solo, even Zant had political ambitions with his whole “usurp the throne thing” and later got a little more driving motivation when you find out he’s been brainwashed by the church of Ganonology. Ghirahim was just a cardboard cutout trope played flat as possible, which you probably could have gotten away with in video game storytelling term 15 years ago, but in this day and age I count “moustache twirling villain” as cheap storytelling.

But, he does a legitimate motivation to be doing what he’s doing. Slight spoilers, I guess…but his whole schtick is that he wants to revive his master. A bit overdone, maybe, since Agahnim, Veran, and Onox did the same thing. But, the reason he wants to do so is fairly unique and ties into the whole latin choir-accompanied backstory that preceded the beginning of the game, but isn’t totally revealed until near the end. I won’t say what it is. You probably know, but some others might not.

I also have to disagree on the idea that he’s played as flat as possible. While he definitely fits into a specific trope, I think his behavior is presented in a way that sets him apart. Though, I can respect the fact that some people don’t like this trope to begin with.

“An effeminate, flamboyant villain who wears make-up, swishes his hair, wears a skintight leotard, does silly dances, and openly exclaims that his heart is full of rainbows.”

I don’t really see how this can be taken as anything other than a parody. He’s a pirouette away from full-on Bon Clay territory. He’s like an evil variant of Tingle. He’s the evil clown trope spliced with the effeminate weirdo trope to form some kind of hyper-trope…a twisted mockery of squealing, Internet-fertilized fangirlisms that seems to exist for the sole reason of making you hesitant to play the game around friends and family.

The only part of that description that is in any way a step up from what you would typically expect to see from that trope of villain is possibly the “exclaims his heart is full of rainbows” and even that isn’t too far out there. The foppish villain stereotype is by definition over-the-top, you’ve got to really push the limit and do something original if you want to point a satirical finger at it. Otherwise it’s just par for the course. If the other characters in the game acknowledged what a stupid character he is or didn’t play along with the act, then he might pass of as a parody. As he is, sorry, I’d have to say he comes up wanting.

It’s like saying “Of COURSE Kefka is a parody, he dresses like a clown and fills multiple dialogue boxes with the word HATE over and over again and leaves a trail of glitter behind him!” or “Of COURSE Pegasus is a parody, he wears a frilly pink suit and loves cartoons and maintains a constant state of inebriation!” or “Or COURSE Kuja is a parody, he’s… well… look at him.”

The effeminate, flamboyant villain is also a callback to a long history of gay male characters only showing up as bad guys (and gay women not showing up at all) in media. So it all leaves a pretty foul taste in my mouth.

What really pissed me off about Ghirahim weren’t those stereotypes, though. It was that “I’ll let you live. THIS TIME! AHAHAHAHAHAHAH!” thing he had going on. It’s used in everything, and it’s never once made any sense in any piece of film/literature/games that I’ve seen.

“I’m just going to go check my tumblr or pick up some bleach for my whites or whatever, I trust that you won’t exploit my absence by using it to get like seventeen more hearts and forge a legendary sword. Oh, and on that note here’s a heart container for you.”

Well, to be fair Ghirahim references that as well. You get to your final fight with him and he flat out calls himself an idiot for not tearing you limb from limb when he first met you, as he is very capable of doing. So it’s something that happens all the time in games, yes, but at least it isn’t glossed over.

I fully agree he shouldn’t be seen as a parody; Zelda isn’t a gag-series and shouldn’t ever be confused with something like that.

I didn’t fully like the character, though the boss battles were pretty cool, even if they made no sense storywise. “I’m going to beat you within an inch of your life, not kill you, and to make it even more fun I’m not going to use my full power, even when you start winning the battle.”
He DID become more badass in the later parts of the game, though of course not by MGDMT standards. The cutscene where he basically waltzed right in, took the princess and mowed his way through the heroes to make it to the time gate – that was pretty cool and it made him a serious threat for a change; it also made Link look pretty pissed off as if to say “sh*t got serious”.
I think he lost about everything that made him obnoxious at the end of the game. No more playing around, no more ambiguously gay stereotypes.

Characters like Him in Powerpuff Girls? There’s a parody of the trope. It has a lot to do with the context of the world and its inhabitants, and how the other characters treat the parody character in question. Something to imply that the creators are in on the joke as well.

Although there were some things about Ghirahim that were so stereo-typical, what I really liked is that whenever he had tantrums, the light in the room seemed to be sucked out with each of his thrashes.

I found that immensely unsettling.

Also on a different note:*HUGE spoiler, FYI*
Despair, the real main bad guy, was one of my favorites from the series. He wasn’t cocky, like his servant Ghirahim. He knew he was badass, but he didn’t gloat. He was actually impressed that Link stood up to him in the end, seeing as all the other experiences he had with humans were them “cowering behind their Goddess.” He actually commended Link on his courageous, albeit apparent suicidal, actions. He was also the hardest final boss I’ve ever fought in a Zelda game.

*Continuing with spoilers*
Ganondorf is actual the constant reincarnation of Despair, so in a way Ganon is in this one too.

it’s Demise ya big dummy! and yes, he was as bad-ass as the great deku tree (OoT), Darunia, and Kaepora Gaepora (oh wait, he’s in here too) and Impa.
they all probably have tea together or something kick-ass and chat with each other about…yunnow…bad-ass business shit and such.
Demise was probably the ONLY villain i wouldn’t mind dying to, period.

at the battle, at first i was kinda dissapointed with the serene landscape, then after it went dark i was like “aahhhhh…this is what i was expecting. good show!” it took me like 10 tries to beat him (didn’t help that i had like 6 hearts remaining), but it was like the equivilant to metroid prime in epicness as far as boss battles go (puts 5 dollars in epic jar). best game i’ve ever played.

I don’t think Kefka really qualifies… He’s just insane and a clown. yeah, the Amano design was girly, but the basic sprite, which is what people tend to remember, wasn’t at all. Half the time he was cracking jokes rather than being creepy.

Is there a sociologist in the house? I wonder at this sometimes, that the Japanese, despite their cultural heritage having very strict specific ideas about gender roles, seem to have androgynous characters in fiction so much more than anyone else. I’m not good at sexuality as it relates to culture, but I bet someone could make maybe thirty dollars and have lasting academic fame if they cracked that egg.

And for the record, the only thing Fi does that bothers me is the percentage things. Everything else just feels like Navi again, which also never seemed to bother me as much as other people. This is unusual because I am one of the least mellow people I know, so if it bothers other people, it usually bothers me twice. So there’s two riddles for all y’all to mull over.

Not quite. The 85% chance thing is actually something that Fi says a lot. She’s sort of like a living computer. She explains the probability of nearly everything. She also, once again, fails to help you defeat an enemy. I had to use the internet to figure out how to get passed the sentry eyes!

I think it’s in inside joke of the fact that 85% of the time that Fi spouts statistics, the statistic is 85%. And 100% of the time, the statistic really should have been 100%. Fi just needs to shut her whore mouth, is what that is.

…Sorry. She just annoyed me SO MUCH every time she gave me a x% probability something would happen, because it was either something INSANELY obvious, or otherwise in a situation where she really didn’t need to use the statistic at all.

Oh god I agree with this so much. Like, if it’d just been that bad during the first dungeon I’d be like “Yeah ok that’s so first timers can get the ropes, first dungeon and all” But she just kept going and going and SHUT UP

I do admit to hating the villain more than ganondorf but that’s mainly because the stupid controls made me completely unable to win the fights against him without resorting to flailing.

precision is the best course of fighting…i almost doed to a stalmaster due to lack of aim…and lost a sacred shield…and maybe a fairy…..oh, and 500 rupees.
moral of this comment: aiming–it fucking works

I haven’t played Skyward Sword yet, but the dialogue written here almost sounds like something Spock would say to Kirk in Star Trek. Try reading Fi’s lines with Leonard Nimoy’s voice, and add “Captain” at the beginning of each line (maybe add a “it’s only logical” at the end). See? It’s uncanny!

You guys do know that you don’t HAVE to hit the Fi button when it’s flashing, right?

I personally find her pleasant to look at, and enjoy the voice acting, and ignore anything she says that isn’t in an obvious “I’m going to reveal the plot” location. Makes her much more enjoyable to ignore the text, which is probably why I find her less irritating than Navi.

i agree with the_l…Fi was actually kinda hot…great legs too (which is a bit awkward in my case for a very odd reason……..) Fi was most likely (for me) had the probability of 100% being the best assisstant for Link. i just loved all the characters, all of their personalities were great some had epic (dollar in epic jar) music (i looooved scrappers song : ) it made me giggle and happy hearing it), the clown dude was freaky in a good way, the dragons were awesome, lavias was bad-ass, groose was actually awesome at the end, the bosses were unique, the mogmas were cool with great hair-styles, the kikwis were adorable (the elder was just silly in an awesome way), impa looked bad-ass (…wait, she’s always bad-ass), bokoblin actually posed as a threat, the guardians made me shat enough bricks for a stonemason to make a two-story apartment, the gorons were more kick-ass, uncle bats had great house fashion taste (theme-wise), beedle was…well, beedle is always awesome, karane was actually kinda cute tbh, bazaar was all kinds of win (the expression on the “happy” dude is hilarious when you decline to buy something), the girl at the item check gets a bit…uh…excited, after some time, the fortune teller is just plain helpful and a great way to get a chuckle or two, lizalfos were a huge threat if handled improperly (and intimidated me when i was getting the bomb bag), undead bokoblin were fukken unstoppable unless you did a finishing blow, Girahim was a great way to get pissed off for a good reason and to exert all of your anger onto him/his minions, the old lady in the sealed temple was all kinds of win, the knights were halpful in saving you (though i got tired of the cockiness after a while…), demise took bad-ass to five whole new levels and was made of more win than his body had room for (which is why is sword is also kick-ass), there were more of the stalfos variety, skulltulas were actually a challenge, the upgrade system helped stupendously, hero mode is a real challenge, scrappers was a cool ass-hole that you hated but couldn’t help but also love him, zelda was damn close to making a move on you, gaepora is still bad-ass, it was just an amazing game.

Given what I spent most of this past weekend doing, I find this comic to be hilarious. A continuing thread among those of us who were observing (and taking turns playing) is that we’d really like to know where she gets the numbers for all her statistics.

I understand your point, but can’t /totally/ agree. The reason Navi was annoying was because of all the “HEY! HEY! LISTEN! HEY!” With Fi, the obvious redundant comments may be long and obviously redundant, but at least she’s just a pleasant jingle you can ignore at your leisure.

I will say I miss the days of no tutorials at all, though! Compare and contrast oldschool Nintendo Hard today and the guys who insist tutorials are necessary may just find it impossible to believe Nintendo ever sold a cartridge!

The Dark Souls “Tutorial” was hardly a tutorial, unless you read the floor messages. The enemies in the asylum (first visit) were simple enough, although the boss was insanely powerful in contrast, then again, I was using the class that got the crappiest starting gear, in my first playthrough of the game, so I guess that’s why the boss was so difficult for me.

at least you could skip navi’s dialogue, whereas half of fi’s retarded dialogue is forced on you midaction, and she actually had a personality at least in a few scenes. Fi was without a doubt the worst character in zelda history (even tingle beats her) Not only that, I’d say shes one of the worst characters in videogame history. Poorly written, flat, annoying, obtrusive, and dull.

SO THIS. Bitch keeps chiming in every 2 minutes to tell you something that even a lobotomized monkey could figure out.
“This door is locked. It needs a key”. No shit, Sherlock. The giant padlock with the huge keyhole gave it away, huh? And she’s useless in boss battles. “I have no information at this time”. Thanks a lot. At least Navi pointed out bosses’ weak spots and helped you aim.

The worst part is that you can’t skip or turn off Fi’s inane blather – you have to scroll through all of her dialogue. Fi completely ruins the momentum of the game.

As for Grab-Ass, I mean, Ghrabim, he’s my favorite video game villian since Kefka.

If you die, though, then on your second attempt, Fi DOES tell you what the enemy’s weak point is. You still have to figure out some of the “how to expose it” yourself, but I find that preferable to Navi’s “I’m going to be a GameFAQs tutorial, since you’re too damn stupid to figure it out yourself.”

The only things I remember Navi telling me were things like “go to the volcano” like a reminder of what your last objective was if you, say, put down the game for a couple months. I’d guess it was measured by how long you’d been playing without moving towards the location you were supposed to. Granted it’s annoying when she says “go to the volcano” and you’re IN the volcano crater, but that’s more the fault of the people who programmed what the specifics of “Volcano” were. She would say “that’s a locked door” if you walked INTO the door, Fi calls me out while I’m trying to pass down hallways to tell me about how locked doors have keys or solve assorted puzzles for me before I get a chance to sweep the room myself.

I love the gameplay of skyward sword, but yeah Fi and the “YOU FOUND AN ITEM NOW WATCH AS IT GOES INTO YOUR INVENTORY VERY SLOWLY” scenes every bloody time you turn on the game are why I’ve basically stopped playing the game. I can’t stand repetition and being told the same messages over and over and over drives me fucking bonkers. At least you could ignore navi half the time.

And the thing was there was absolutly no reason for it to be repeated after the first time. Other zelda games knew not to do this, why did skyward sword suddenly take this step back? Still loved the game :D

I would like to stop the ragetrain about here, while it is true many sidekicks can be obnoxious, there is absolutely no doubt that they can be useful. While there are many moments when they interject with a moment of “you don’t say” advice, this is weighed up by provding help in situations. In OoT, if Navi didn’t interject with (watch out for the shadows of monsters that hang from the ceiling) yo wold have walked into a room, seen a shadow pooling around your feet, gone WTF? and look up just as a wallmaster grabbed you and put you back at the entrance of the dungeon, at which point you would have been raging at why no-one told you anything.
I played Spirit Tracks and your companion (ethereal Zelda) doesn’t give any help, so through most of the dungeons I just FAQ through because I have no idea how to do anything. As with Fi’s never having boss fight information, she gains more as she analyzes the enemy gradually getting more information with time. This mechanic made sure that boss fights still had the methodical, precise and challenging feel like the rest of the fights. In most of the other games, boss fights generally were too easy because all you had to do was ask your companion(in the games that had it, ones that didn’t had insane boss fights) and you could complete boss fights within minutes.

Fi is just plain awful. We need Ganondorf back. Don’t make me do the same stuff that I did in Twilight Princess with collecting balls of light. We need another Windwaker or something along those lines.

I agree that TP Ganon sucked, but I also agree that we need another Wind Waker. By which I mean we need another big bright atmospheric world to explore full of colourful monsters and characters, a tolerable sidekick, and a villain with an understandable motivation. I know everyone loves OoT, but WW was probably my favourite Zelda.

If that’s how you say “I will acquire fertile green land by force because my people live in a barren desert wasteland”, then yes, that is what I mean. That’s pretty much how invasion works unilaterally across all species, a region runs out of resources or otherwise become uninhabitable and the living things in the area seek out new territory.

What people? The Gerudo are all dead by Wind Waker. Ganondorf in Wind Waker wants to conquer Hyrule because he’s resentful of the harsh life that he and they lived in the desert. There’s no invasion for the sake of survival of a race, it’s just Ganondorf being covetous.

Ganondorf’s primary motivation in Wind Waker is greed…just like Ghirahim’s is loyalty and Zant’s is…also greed?

Best motivation for any Zelda antagonist belongs to Nightmare, his motivation is that it wants to continue to exist.

So I guess the whole “Went mad with power and became singlemindedly focused on revenge until he ended up with a sword in his face watching the kingdom he threw away everything in pursuit of flood into oblivion” thing went over your head. That’s too bad, it was a pretty cool story development.

Ganondorf’s words in Wind Waker ring kinda hollow in light of his actions in OoT. He actually did conquer Hyrule there, and had seven years to rule it, but all he did was destroy stuff. The Gerudo aren’t any better off after the timeskip, and it’s almost certainly because he put all his effort into ruining everyone else’s home. It’s not so much “The hylians had pie and wouldn’t share it so I tried to take some pie and the whole thing got ruined by accident” As “they wouldn’t share the pie so I took it and threw it on the floor just to be spiteful”

Actually, Ganondorfs motivations in OoT is “Oh, there are these bright triangles which will give me god-like powers and turn the world into an evil wasteland full of enslaved people and ruled over by monsters, why shouldn’t I at least try” by the canon, his motivations were the same as many other people, he just had more power and motivation, and had a purely evil soul.

i detect an 85% probability of link having a nervous breakdown very soon.. and there is an 85% probability of visiting link in a mental health hospital.. next game: The Legend of Zelda, Mind in the Clouds..

My brother and I were just talking about Fi (Honestly, I forgot her name until you mentioned it) and Navi. We agreed that as annoying as Navi was, at least she had a personality. Fi’s more like a robot. Or something.

But that was sort of the point, wasn’t it? Navi was supposed to be a sentient being, so she was programmed to imitate one as well as was possible. Fi, on the other hand, is clearly a pre-programmed AI messenger made centuries in advance and sealed into a sword. She has no concept of human thought, and no clue what kind of monsters are in location X until you get there. She only “knows” the parts that are fated to happen, and can’t be all that certain of other things.

Hence, the obsession with mathematical precision (“85% chance” instead of “She’s probably in here”), the weird inability to understand what is and isn’t obvious, and a complete obliviousness toward the fact that the Kikwis fear her and everyone else thinks she’s weird.

I liked the game, but really, the story is terrible. You can see every single plot point coming a mile away. The controls are decent, but not amazing as the commercials make it look. There’s a lot of interesting new mechanics, but it’s not enough for as much bloat and obnoxious repeats they tack on to the game.

Item upgrading was fun the first five times. Then running around the desert for three hours trying to find some fuckin’ tumbleweeds really started to get to me.

My enjoyment of the game followed an arc of “This is irritating” to “Okay, this is pretty fun” to “Wow, I am really starting to hate this.” It’s a shame halfway through they decided to just start copy-pasting boss fights and tacking in unkillable-enemy-fetch-quest levels. It’s like they burnt the second half of the game and tried to scrape of the black crusty part hoping nobody would notice.

And yeah, holy shit the story was awful. Zelda’s whole tale about being the reincarnation of Hylia is some of the most laughably horrible writing I’ve ever seen. “So the Goddess and Demise fought, and the Goddess won, and instead of using the time Demise was sealed away as an opportunity to get stronger she decided to turn herself into a mortal so she could use the triforce. An ultimate weapon created by the gods to be unusable by the gods. Because that gives mortals hope for some reason.” All I can picture is a Rocky 3 montage to Eye of the Tiger where Demise was in a cellar doing pushups while Hylia was hamming it up in ad spots and cover shoots and shit like that. Checking her tumblr or something.

In contrast to all of the discussion above, Ghiraham was pretty much the only thing that kept me going. He was the SINGLE thing in the game that amused me enough to want to keep playing to see it to the end. I was actually pretty happy with all the boss fights with him, despite the fact that the last one was a total wash. I actually am on the last fight, but died once, and don’t really feel like finishing it. I mean, I’m compulsive, so I HAVE TO, but I really don’t WANT to…

I liked the story of the Triforce from Link To The Past better (still my favorite Zelda game, period). I think they tried to take some story elements from LTTP, some from OOC, and mash them together with “original” ideas. I literally spent half the game trying to figure out how to fit it canonically with the rest of the series lore, before I finally just gave up because after a certain point, it just doesn’t matter anymore. SS was just not worth the trouble.

Well, at least I got a kickass CD and an awesome Wiimote out of the deal…

Oh it gets worse. You see, in an interview with Eiji Aonumura, it was flat out said that the Triforce wasn’t a gift to Hylia. The Triforce is something she MADE. She created a relic with unimaginable power, which she couldn’t use, and then decided to not kill of Demise. INSTEAD, she decided to become a mortal so that she could use the thing that conceivably only has a fraction of her own power.

Oh but that’s not all. You see, before she took the stupid train, she then prophecised a chosen hero. A hero that wouldn’t have been needed, had she just killed off Demise from the start. A hero who would be chosen to use a fraction of her power. She basically became a mortal because fuck god hood, let’s place all of existence at risk just because. And then let’s create multiple tests for the one person we already knew was going to be able to pass, rather than give him the ability to steamroll his way through this whole mess and save the world a shit load of suffering.

That is the legend of Zelda. Hylia is a moron, Demise is a baby who can’t stand losing, and to top it all off the series will NEVER end with a face-off against Ganondorf. The staple villain of this series, the one who has been the bane of this universe, is no longer the threat. Because in the end, no matter how many times Ganon is vanquished, it’s Demise who will eventually have to be dealt with.
Because, again, Hylia CHOSE not to kill him, and instead bestow a sword onto a hero which would only SEAL Demise away. Because taking the Triforce with you into the past and just, you know, making that same wish again was just too much trouble.

Ganondorf literally is the reincarnation of Demise…so, nothing has really changed. The main antagonist of every console Zelda game, excluding Majora’s Mask, has still been Ganondorf in some way or another. Demise acts as Ganondorf’s origin story, basically. Because of Demise’s curse, evil is fated to be reborn as Ganondorf.

Close, but no. Ganondorf is the reincarnation of Demise’s hatred. Because, you see, his hatred is never ending. Demise is shown quite clearly to have been sealed away within the Master Sword upon his defeat. Which means that he must inevitably be the final issue to be dealt with should the series ever wish to come to some satisfying conclusion.
Not only that, but should they ever prematurely end Demise, they will also end Ganondorf, thus fating them to trying to squeeze out more prequels to fit into the current mess of a story line they’ve got, or come up with a completely new iconic villain for a series that’s been going on for 25+ years.

I’m not really defending it, just conceding that canon means almost nothing in Zelda because the story is almost always treated like an afterthought and they can always just add more tangent universes to their “official timeline” if they want to change something. It’s disappointing but, eh, considering what has happened to video games in the past 25 years I can understand wanting unlimited retcons.

According to Nintendo, ALttP, the Oracle Games, Link’s Awakening, and the Legend of Zelda 1&2 all happen in a universe where Ganondorf beat OoT Link, so really, they could hypothetically add a new branch anywhere they wanted by saying “and this happened if Link failed that one”.

Personally, I like to consider the LttP branch less of a “Link failed” and more of “Link never came back”. After all Zelda did technically send him back to a point in time when he not only already existed but hadn’t pulled the Master Sword. And since that Link can only exist in one timeline at a time, the argument can be made that Zelda shot Link off to a time where he didn’t exist, rather than the one he was originally from.
But I suppose that’s both beside the point and splitting hairs.

All the same, it’s kind of sad to see games picking up a common comic book habit. I can understand the sort of freedom that comes with that sort of openness and ability to just retcon everything, but at some point we’re going to hit the video game equivalent of Countdown To Infinite Crisis/Crisis On Infinite Earth, and just as we did then we’ll wonder just what the hell all this multiverse retcon shit did to this franchise, and if any good came out of tirelessly writing one-offs instead of a decent and satisfying story.

The main reason people don’t like the overall story and continuity is because people keep attempting to place the stories in a timeline but it simply doesn’t work out because few are actually part of any particular timeline. Zelda games like the Oracle series, the Adventure of Link and quite a few others aren’t actually part of any time line, they were just made-one instance is the first Legend of Zelda, Nintendo didn’t expect to have to make several other games and tie them in; no reference in any later games is made to these games. Nintendo just attempted to satisfy public demand for an ordered story, which they couldn’t ultimately do because it cannot ultimately be done without a metric ton of prequals, sequals and in-betweeners to connect all games together. If Nintendo wants to focus on overall story development they should just tie in any new games into the obvious timeline.

Well, there are already many Zelda games that don’t even involve Ganon at all already. Majora’s Mask was a spectacular game and it didn’t need him at all. Majora was cool, right? He…or she…was a pretty memorable villain, even though MM has faded into semi-obscurity, at least compared to the other games.

As for Demise…Impa did say something like ‘His remains are decaying slowly within the Master Sword’. In the most recent game on the timeline, he may not even exist anymore. The curse of Link and Zelda being pursued by his everlasting hatred, however, is still apparently existent. It seems orchestrated to have no absolute conclusion in sight. They’re just a series of heroic tales.

I like that part of the lore. It makes Ganondorf himself seem more tragic…a victim of destiny, just like Link and Zelda.

That’s not the point though. Ganon is the series’ iconic villain. He is the one we all know to be the big bad that needs to be stopped in order for peace to exist. And while the dalliances with other villains are nice, they’re just that: dalliances. They’re breaks from the main villain. They aren’t meant to be the iconic villain, just distractions. And while the games they’re in are great (sometimes), from a story telling perspective it would be infuriating to give these distractions the central spot light.

And I can’t see Ganondorf as a victim in this. He isn’t even a person or a character anymore. He’s an aspect of some dude given flesh. No matter what his intentions, what he thinks, or what he feels he will always be the villain. This is a terrible cop-out for actually fleshing this character out, because now he no longer needs a reason to do anything. The iconic villain is reduced to a comedic trope of Evil Because Evil. All that characterization in Wind Waker doesn’t mean anything anymore.
He’s not some guy who desperately wanted to do something good for his people. He isn’t some guy, chosen to be a ruler, who submitted to the weakness of his own heart when presented with ultimate power. He’s now the evil bad guy who is evil because he just is.
It’s insulting, and it throws away any semblance of tragedy and sympathy that they could have given him. Demise is a cop out excuse to ever flesh out Ganon as a character. Especially since Demise didn’t have any sort of characterization either. He’s evil and wants the Triforce because he’s evil. I know this is a common game trope, but this is 2012. Games back on the SNES had more complex villains than that. I refuse to accept this sort of characterization. I want games to IMPROVE, not stagnate. I want them to do better, to push boundaries, and tell great stories.

I’m sick of games and their stories going the way that God of War did. It happens too often, and for such a story-driven and lore-heavy game series like Zelda, it’s a serious shame when the best they can come up with is Evil Because Evil.

You’re free to if you want. I could go on for ages about issues with this game’s story, and at some point I plan to actually set up a Tumblr and do just that (forever behind the times). In the mean time this rant is approved for public use.

I disagree. Nothing about the lore in Skyward Sword invalidates Ganondorf as a character. Though, to be fair, Ganondorf has ALWAYS been the Great King of Evil and the Dark Lord. His intentions and objectives have never been purely to help anyone. Even in Wind Waker, which features the most in-depth version of Ganondorf, all of the Gerudo excluding himself are dead. He isn’t trying to save his people. His pride and envy causes him to covet Hyrule because of the harsh life he had lead in the desert. His primary motivation is a lust for power and control. He wants Hyrule because he thinks he deserves it.

Ganondorf is not Demise. He will never be Demise. The idea that he is Demise reincarnated is only an implication and never stated outright anyway. Demise is literally evil for the sake of evil because that’s what he is. He’s the Devil, essentially. Skyward Sword is an origin story…and moreso than the other games, it deals with the actual lore of Heaven vs. Hell that the series has. It’s always been a story of basic Good vs. Evil and Demise fits with it.

The fact that it’s revealed that Demise cursed all of Link and Zelda’s reincarnations to be sought after by the remnants of his hatred won’t change the quality of villains in future titles. Ganondorf hasn’t gotten a proper representation since Wind Waker anyway. Demise is a better substitute than what we saw tacked on at the end of Twilight Princess.

The existence of Demise won’t effect Ganondorf as a character any more than the existence of Hylia will effect the characters of Zelda or Link.

I can go on for ages about the implications Wind Waker has had on Ganondorf as a character, but I guess that’s all something up for interpretation, so I’m just going to drop it. I will say, as a final note, that it’s rather interesting that out of everything Ganondorf could have done to get the Spiritual Stones, he settled on a rather slow-acting curse which put the people in a sort of position that he had to grow up with. I mean, this guy alone was able to ward off the entire Royal Family’s army on his own. He could have easily just killed everyone and taken the stones.
It’s rather interesting that he instead elected to place its rulers, who he already knew had the stones, in a position of either giving them to him or let their people suffer. In fact, I’m pretty sure he even asked both the Deku Tree and Darunia before doing anything at all. The Great King of Evil requested the stones that would open his way to the Triforce, instead of just killing everyone to get them.
Doesn’t that strike you as telling to his character? It does for me, anyway.
Anyway, moving on.

I’m pretty sure Skyward Sword said it outright. Even if it didn’t use the word Ganondorf, it was implied so heavily as to be said outright. It was even in big red letters, if I’m not mistaken. And I’m pretty sure that there’s an interview kicking around where Aonumura confirmed that to be the case. So yes Ganondorf is no longer a person with opinions, ideals, or any semblance of humanity. He is literally just the reincarnation of Demise’s hatred. Not even Demise, just Demise’s hatred.

And yes, that does make an impact on the character and how he’s viewed, just as Zelda having been Hylia makes an impact on her character. It explains why Zelda, even without the Triforce of Wisdom, has prophetic dreams, great magical power, and is forever a composed and graceful person in some position of power and/or leadership. Granted two games have subverted this, but that’s two out of a dozen. Zelda having been Hylia explains everything about Zelda, because that is literally THE legend of Zelda. The legend being that she was once Hylia, the Goddess who created everything.

I just…
I can’t believe that I even have to explain this. This is basic story structure stuff, and about an author respecting their audience. It’s about proper foreshadowing, proper build up, and keeping a story in focus. This is essential stuff for anyone wanting to write anything, and it’s one of those big things that you don’t just ignore without good reason. Demise’s inclusion as an origin to Ganondorf just fucks with his character. I’m sorry, but it just does. It reduces him to just being an extension of a greater evil, and absolves him of ever having any complexity. It turns the main antagonist to a series that is heavy on story and lore into a trope, and that is NEVER a good thing.

Think about how much it would fuck with the Star Wars lore, if suddenly it was revealed that Darth Vader is just the reincarnation of some guy who was Evil Because Evil. That’s THE main villain, who literally got stripped of any sort of development, because now he longer made the choices he did of his own accord, but because that was his fate all along. His reasonings no longer matter, because his origin takes full precedence. It would cause and outrage, and rightly so.
This sort of story telling is something that is often made fun of, and is a sign of weak writing. No one beside children appreciate this sort of character motivation, and for a game that was aimed at the older fan it’s an insult to see the origin of the iconic bad guy reduced to Evil Because Evil.

None the less I’m done. I’ve spent far too much time on this than I ought to have, and frankly I have better things to do with my time.

I like the Darth Vader analogy, because Ganon has been referred to as “the Darth Vader of Video Games” on more than one occasion. I think that may have even been how they introduced him in an EGM summary of the greatest game villains ever or something like that. And like Darth Vader, he just got a poorly written prequel diminishing his character from its previous menacing, sympathetic, and fairly well written self.

Demise’s curse has a lot of implications beyond that. The curse explicitly states that his hatred is destined to chase Link and Zelda throughout history. Before this, it had always been assumed that Link was a hero who rose up in times of great evil…but at this point, it may actually be the opposite of that. Evil, instead, may be interpreted that something which comes into existence simply because Link exists. Anyway, that’s a tangent…

Ganondorf doesn’t share the same ideals or intentions as Demise. Demise actually wants to destroy the world. Ganondorf just wants to rule it. This alone should allow you to make enough of a disconnect between their motivations and characters. Now, what about Link? He’s the chosen hero, right? Has he ever been good for the sake of simply being good? In pretty much all of his incarnations, his role is something that is actually forced on him. He doesn’t have a choice. He has to stop Demise because he’s chosen by the Goddess, whether he likes it or not. His attachment to Zelda is what spurs him into action and forces him to improve as a person and become a hero. In Wind Waker, Link isn’t even of the right bloodline…but because of his circumstances, he becomes a hero. He may be celebrated as heroic, but in the end all that responsibility is placed on him as an act of destiny. As a hero, he suffers from a burden…

The reason that I think Skyward Sword is actually a nice change to the idea of Ganondorf is that it literally puts him in the same exact position as Link. Link is destined to be a hero, he has no choice…likewise, Ganondorf is destined to become Link’s adversary. Ganondorf suffers from the same burden that Link does and that’s what makes him more tragic because of it. Rather than just being the Dark Lord, he’s a mirrored version of Link. He was born as the first male Gerudo in 100 years. He had no choice but to become a ruler, and the result of being a male Gerudo instilled in him a sense of pride to the point of hubris. He lived his life in the dry, harsh deserts within enough space to envy the people of Hyrule and covet their land. Link’s circumstances drive him to do good things, just as Ganondorf’s circumstances drive him to do bad things. The fact that Ganondorf’s position as an antagonist was determined in a time before he existed is a part of that.

Now, you compared him to Darth Vader…now, more than ever, that’s true. Vader was also a victim of fate…he was always destined to ‘bring balance to the Force’. Just because you’re destined to play a role in a story doesn’t mean you’re suddenly ‘evil because you’re evil’. A character’s role being predetermined by a power that’s out of their control isn’t weak storytelling. It all ties into the themes of fate, eternal conflict, and good vs. evil that the series has been about from the beginning.

And anyway, you also mentioned how iconic Ganondorf is. Would it really be bad if games in the future didn’t have Ganondorf as the primary antagonist? Lately, it seems like Nintendo seems unwilling to take the series beyond Ganondorf. They pretty much slapped him on the end of Twilight Princess to say ‘Hey, look! It’s Ganondorf! Remember him? We didn’t forget!’ I’d like to see more games with differing antagonists. I thought the villain in Majora’s Mask was a good direction.

And no, I don’t have better things to do with my time. I like overanalyzing plots of videogames.

I agree. While I think that Demise’s hatred for Link is re-incarnated in Ganondorf, Ganondorfs intentions will always be power. His hatred simply re-incarnates istelf in the way that it crosses paths with Link. Link and Zelda’s curse has as much to do with the machinations of the goddess/es wanting to prevent the Triforce falling into the hands of evil.

Wait wait wait, I thought the triforce was made by Din Farore and Nayru? I mean, it still makes no sense why it would be unusable by gods or why it would allow the gods to do things they couldn’t do anyway, but at least we have Hylia trying to borrow power from an outside agency.

Pardon, but it sounds as if in your scorn you weren’t really listening to the plot at that point. Zelda says that Hylia was *nearly dead* from her battle with Demise. Fatally injured. I think the insinuation was that turning herself into a mortal was the only way for her to stay around to at least try to watch over things.

Also, the bulk of your hatred of the story seems predicated on what sound like fannish theories about the plot, rather than what’s ever been on screen. Ganon was always simple force of evil outside of like one line in The Wind Waker.

They said she was grievously injured or some shit like that, not necessarily fatally, and she was certainly in a more motile position to visit ancient deity ER or whatever their theological equivalent was. As in with Demise locked up, she’s in a better position than ever to heal, bulk up, make more ultimate weapons. She literally has all the cards. I’d hazard to guess that even if she was bleeding out on the carpet, she could at least stomp Ghirahim a couple times and take out Demise’s number 1 toady.

I don’t think Ghirahim was an actual “individual” when Hylia was a Goddess. I kind of got the impression that he was released into the world and had to slowly rebuild what his Master had before Hylia banished him.

I also understood that Hylia’s wound is what caused her to become mortal. That she was incapable of surviving until she became mortal, because apparently mortal souls can REINCARNATE (a gift of the Gods). She didn’t go to the Elder Gods, because they left before the final battle between Hylia and Demise. They gave her the power and said, “SEE YA WOULDN’T WANT TO BE YA. TRY NOT TO LOSE THE BATTLE FOR THE WORLD.”

Although, as I mentioned, if I were Demise and Ghirahim was my #1 go-to-guy, I’d have given up ever getting loose. Or I’d never want to get loose, because that would mean spending an eternity with an annoying, eerie weapon that

“I’d hazard to guess that even if she was bleeding out on the carpet, she could at least stomp Ghirahim a couple times and take out Demise’s number 1 toady.”

Hmm… Why are we expecting her to have enough power to pull this, when deities in Zelda are usually laughable at best(most of them gets horribly beaten/shattered/transformed into something funny by the demon/villain of the month).

The only deities that showed any particular impressive ability was the Golden Trio. And considering that the Triforce is far more limited than fans seem to realize…

I have heard rumors that the Oracles were originally meant to be the Goddesses, but that doesn’t seem that likely.

The exposition and characters are pretty much the best I’ve seen out of a Zelda game. Lots of NPCs in the main town that are interested, and it’s the first Zelda title that really made me feel emotionally attached to what was happening since Link’s awakening. Plot is simple, but effective.

Overworld is different. It’s laid out like a smaller version of WW’s ocean, with the ‘field’ being divided into three distinct areas. It breaks up the monotony of field/dungeon in previous games. You might not like it if you prefer gigantic, non-linear areas though.

There’s backtracking, but I never found it tedious. They always change something important, and the areas play out different. Dungeon design is great…puzzling at times, but never that frustrating. Combat isn’t as immersive as I thought, but the motion controls work the way they should.

The only legitimate complaints I can really think of is that a couple of the bosses seemed kinda disappointing. Too typical, y’know? Good game though. Worth the price.

The world is so EMPTY. Painfully empty. Sure, any modern Zelda game only ever has about 10 interesting people in it, but they’re usually part of different communities with their own character. In this game, they’re all crammed into Skyloft. Where’s the Goron city? Are the Bokoblins just random wandering assholes, or do they have a base/city/spawning pool somewhere? Where are the other two dragons?

The setting for Skyward Sword is that there was a gigantic war and the Goddess sent all the humans to live peacefully in islands in the sky, leaving the surface to become ravaged with war and overtaken by the wilderness. There is no Goron City because there literally is no Goron City. Ghirahim is the ruler of the surface world. It fits with the lore.

Skyloft + Eldin Volcano + Faron Woods + Lanayru Desert are supposed to be the equivalent to one large overworld, but while trimming all the unnecessary fat. Because of this, this is the only Zelda game I can think of in which literally every NPC has a name…because they didn’t stretch themselves out with scattering a bunch of other towns around. It ends up being more streamlined and dungeon-focused, which is something different that I can appreciate.

As for Bokoblins, they have camps. You’ll occasionally find tents and stuff that they live in.

There’s a petition called “Operation Moonfall” which is asking for Nintendo to remake Majora’s Mask for the 3DS, like they did with Ocarina of Time. It was said Nintendo would probably do it if there was enough interest from players. I’m not sure how Operation Moonfall is going, exactly, but I hope it succeeds. :)

Most of these things she doesn’t even say or interrupt you for, man. Fi pops up about as frequently as Midna did in TP…and most of her percentage remarks are meant to be funny in a dry kinda way. At least, that’s how it came off to me. She’s better than Navi anyway simply because she doesn’t make annoying sounds.

Also, I actually dug the Silent Realms. Good atmosphere, felt tense and exciting when the music sprang up and ya got chased. Feels like what they did in PH and TP but without all the bad parts.

The Silent Realm is meant as a trial for the Hylia’schosen hero. In the game it is described as a spiritual growth upon completion. The Guardians are all part of the trial to prove whether the hero is worthy of being the her, and so you can get some kick-ass items.

Technically this Link is the very first incarnation! [spoilers] the Skyward Sword becomes the Master Sword that almost every other Link uses. I’m glad I’m not the only one who was incredibly frustrated with Fi.

I wasn’t aware of any timeline set in stone. I only experienced this game through watching my significant other play it.

I have absolutely no interest in Zelda other than watching other people play it so I can figure out what the story is. I don’t follow announcements or any of that other hype jazz. I avoid the Nintendo section in most magazine/websites.

But now that you mentioned it, I’m going to have to look at it, because I’m curious as to how they actually set things up.

Ya, you really think after years of videogames they get.. nobody bloody wants a damn helper anymore… That they at most would like it in text… once.. then have it shoved into a book in the menu they can reference when they need it..

Not really, all of those things besides the Starbucks one are messages she’s bombarded me with. Some like the “THIS IS A LOCKED DOOR, THERE’S PROBABLY A KEEEEY” or “LET ME TELL YOU WHAT THE DIALOGUE BOX JUST DID EXCEPT I’LL TAKE LONGER” or “YOU SHOULD EXPLORE DUNGEONS” weren’t even optional or skippable.

The one about finding more hearts isn’t really true. She doesn’t interrupt gameplay when you’re low on health. Dowsing updates are just that…she just lets you know there’s a new dowsing item. The skulltula one never happens either, you’re just free to analyze enemies as you wish. When she does interrupt, she stays for about five seconds…and she might do it once or twice during a dungeon.

Some people might find her obnoxious, but I didn’t. Mostly, I just find it funny…like her bringing up the boss door in the third dungeon when she didn’t mention anything about it during the first two. Still, she isn’t as bad as Navi or Kaepora.

She will have a cut scene where her text slowly crawls across the screen to explain to you that there’s a new dowsing item, then immediately after she’s done talking start buzzing and flashing until you dowse. It’s like “Okay fuckhead, I know I have to dowse for your christfucking basin, I’m in the wrong section of the planet for that to be useful yet.” And She does have unskippale automatic messages like “DUNGEONS ARE FOR EXPLORING.” “LOCKED DOORS HAVE KEYS.” or the occasional “WAIT LET ME TELL YOU THE ANSWER BEFORE YOU HAVE A CHANCE TO LOOK AT THE PUZZLE”

And just because they aren’t *all* obligatory messages to listen to doesn’t mean they aren’t all things she actually says as well as all interruptive and irritating as hell if you do happen to call on her with the assumption that she’s being relevant. And should you accidentally call her up, there’s no way to just skip her dialogue, you have to watch her words snail through the dialogue box while she warbles her stupid animal crossing gibberish and breaks up whatever you might be trying to accomplish. And on the occasions where I HAVE actually needed help, she becomes most useless of all, telling you something to the effect of “HIT ITS WEAK POINT” and offering statistics on previous encounters.

Cutscenes? Either she pops up to talk in an event that’s entirely scripted anyway, or she pops out at certain points to say something and float back to the sword. The text crawl isn’t amazingly fast, but she usually doesn’t have much to say. Five to ten seconds of your time, at most. At least, that’s what it is in my experience. If the text actually took ages and ages to leave, THEN I’d have something bad to say about her.

Like ya said, a lot of it is optional…so, if you don’t wanna talk to her, don’t call her.

Can’t say that the Dowsing alarm wasn’t kinda irritating, but there have been things in previous Zelda titles that were much worse…like the low health indicator in LttP. Like a fire alarm going off. Navi was annoying entirely because she made annoying sounds. Fi just speaks in…autotuned Spanish and makes a beep every now ‘n then.

Except that both dowsing and the fi button bleep. And they basically scream at you because they beep about 10X louder than your own low health indicator, over every little thing. Low health? Expect two beeps now. Something new going on that the game just told you about? Expect another beep so fi can tell you about it (again). New dowsing item thing you don’t need because you found it already walking around? Beep fucking beep baby. I’d take LttP’s low health indicator beep any time of the day. And she never shuts up. Navi’s occasional “hey” were pretty unnoticeable by comparison. (Also fuck fi for complaining about my battery life all the time)

The Dowser beep seems unnecessary…but I wouldn’t lay that on Fi. Just seems unnecessary to have after Fi has already informed you that there’s a new item available for dowsing. Should just have one or the other.

There’s nothing annoying about the low health signal. Fi beeps three times and then it doesn’t repeat. Navi’s high-pitched voice seemed much more persistent. I don’t dislike Navi or anything, but I don’t see anything wrong with Fi in comparison.

Would much rather have all that than the emergency alarm from LttP that never, ever stops until you get your health back. I think that people blow Fi’s obnoxiousness out of proportion, but that’s just me.

And considering the game still does the standard Zelda “your hearts are low!” alarm it’s not like her saying “Your hearts are low” is really helping. Especially annoying if you’re carrying heart medals that give you extra life, because it’ll start ringing when you’re down to three minus your medals, so you can have like five full hearts and still have the game beeping and buzzing at you to find more health.

The only potentially useful thing is her dowsing-for-hearts feature, but you have to answer her “YOUR HEARTS ARE LOW” call several times before she’ll add that feature. I’m not sure why they decided that was somehow more engaging than just having her add it as a target the first time she notices your health is down.

It’s Nintendo. Like Square, they’re reading into the whole “Gamers are getting dumber/lazier every year” trend that seems to be invading parts of the industry. I’m not sure if it’s Japan or the entire industry at large, either. But it’s become most prevailent in games coming out of Japan lately (like the last Final Fantasy – I can beat the game with auto-battle on 90% of the fights).

A lot of the complaints in this comic can simply be avoided by not pressing down. Don’t want her advice? Don’t talk to her. For the most part, she will only become office assistant if you talk to her.
I always thought of the 85% thing as extremely deadpan humor.

That moment stuck out at me because I asked “Zelda?” And she said what basically amounts to ‘doesn’t look like Zelda, doesn’t smell like Zelda, doesn’t taste like Zelda. Obviously not Zelda.’

I don’t see that anywhere else, but that might just be because I’m not picking the most obtuse dialogue options.

If only she didn’t call me Master all the time, I could use a name like Haha and make her laugh all the time. “Haha, your batteries are low!” “Haha, you need more health!” I actually did that in Phantom Hourglass, and that improved the quality of the game by about 9%.

I remember the first time I considered the idea that Fi might be fucking with me.

It was in that ship place in the sand sea. Got to this big room full of sand. Fi popped up and basically said ‘I recommend searching through that giant pile of sand’. It was the first time in the game I got genuinely annoyed with her.

Then I explored the sand, which had that giant scorpion boss thing inside it, which I had to kill. As soon as it was dead, Fi popped out again and said something along the lines of ‘On second thought, I don’t think there’s anything here. Better not explore the sand anymore’.

She set me up. Thought she spoiled a puzzle, found out she just guided me to a surprise boss. After that, I started to like her…though, I can see why somebody wouldn’t. I still feel like the only guy in the world whose favorite companion throughout the games was Ezlo.

She’s spoiled plenty enough puzzles for me to get sick of her. Like on the robo-ghost ship, that puzzle where there’s all the sand on the floor covering the wheel diagrams that show you the order to hit the gem on the door, she says something like “look at the wheels, the red spokes probably have something to do with their order” and it’s like “fuck off and let me play my video game”. I think there was another part in that level where you can see through the roof to shoot the time warp thing on the mast and she’s like “look up, you can probably hit that from here”, it’s like the game is dictating the player’s guide out to me while I try to play it.

There’s a place in one of the fire temples where there are big smouldering chunks of rock on the ground, obviously not something you want to step on. there’s a treasure chest behind one such pile with a hook shot target behind it, but once you get to the side with the chest, there’s no way back. But there are piles of dust in the area in front of you, so once you get the gust bellows out to blow them away, it’s not a hard leap of logic to think, “oh, maybe this item will work on the rocks too!” and it does. When I finished that part, I was like “Wow, that was a really smart way to guide you into figuring out that you can get rid of those rocks”, then I thought “Well why is that a big deal, that’s how it should be” and realized that just about every other time there was a chance for something like that in the game, Fi would just pop out and tell you. It takes away all the fun of figuring things out for yourself. It’s fun to be stuck sometimes, that’s how you get the satisfaction of solving a problem.

It’s like playing Portal if Glados spent the whole time saying things like “your parents wouldn’t love you if they knew you were planning to use the tractor beam to float the propulsion gel to the end of that ramp” or “whatever you do don’t send that laser through a portal next to those turrets”

I agree, partially. Most of the time, all Fi does is state the obvious. Like, y’know when you enter an area and the screen pans away and sometimes shows you a shot of something important? When she pipes up right after that to verbally translate what you just saw…I don’t mind that. She establishes her presence. It’s good that I don’t forget that she exists entirely (See: Ezlo).

I can count a few times where I wish she didn’t show up though. She doesn’t pop in for every puzzle and I still felt challenged at times, but it was still excessive.

If there’s a traveling companion in the next game, I’m hoping they have an option for experienced players to lower the frequency of things like that…or maybe turn ’em off entirely.

I kinda find it odd that she mentioned the Time Stone you could shoot.

…There were several situations almost exactly like that in previous parts of the game and she didn’t say a word. I didn’t think it was spoiling, but it felt ridiculously out of place…like they just jumbled a lot of her dialogue around.

I think in that particular situation they were worried people wouldn’t think to look at the roof for holes. But there are certainly more intelligent, immersive ways they could have hinted at it rather than just throwing in a character to flat out say “shoot arrows through that hole in the roof”. Even like… a beam of light would have been less obtrusive.

In response to the robo ship…I remember the part where she tells you that you can shoot the stone, but not the first one. The only time she spoke for me during that puzzle was if I decided to have her examine the lock, which is kinda pointless since you saw the exact same kinda lock in a previous dungeon.

I just…gust bellow’d the floor, revealed the symbols, and that was it. She didn’t say I word the whole time as I deciphered them. Unless I’m thinking of the wrong thing. Just started this dungeon.

Here, I’ll mention Midna. She was a WAY better character than Fi. She actually had motivation for her actions, and she followed a nice character arc throughout the game so that when
*SPOILERS*
she reveals herself at the end and seals off the Twilight realm, you actually feel sorrow for the bittersweet ending the characters experience.

Fi, on the other hand, tries to shoehorn an entire game’s worth of development into her very last appearance. I didn’t feel sad at all in the end, because I simply didn’t care about her as a character.

As much as I think that Fi can point out the obvious alot of the time, at least she’s more useful than Navi, as not only can she inform you about enemies, but objects and characters too. The only other thing I don’t like about her is that she lacks a personality, but she’s an A.I. so that’s somewhat forgivable.

As for Ghirahim, as much as I’m not the biggest fan of bishohen characters, Ghirahim is an exception mainly because his psychotic and flamboyant personality makes up for it, even if it’s not something original, which I honestly don’t think it matters. I mean, he’s able to grab Link’s sword and use it against him for crying out loud.

And as much as I like Ganondorf as a villian, I don’t want to see him in every single Zelda game after Skyward Sword, mainly because there are alot of other interesting enemies to choose from, like Vaati, for example. And I certainly don’t want to see Nintendo pulling an ALttP again in that this interesting character is thought to be the main antagonist but it actually turns out of be Ganon. That’s just my take on it, though.

At least in Navi’s era Link was still all new and shiny. Now I think they’re sort of flagging for original ideas. I don’t blame them, Link has had a good long run, but maybe they should, I dunno, try something new and original?

That is so amazing and I haven’t even played Skyward Sword past the initial area where you have to do the whole, “Oh noes, your Loftwing is missing, mwa ha ha ha ha!” and then scroll through some UST between you and Zelda, followed by receiving a groovy sword and some iconic threads, but I totally dig Groose. He was harmless, I mean, if he was a bigger bully, maybe trending a bit towards Seifer or something, he would have broken Link’s Loftwing’s wings. (That is a mouthful I care not to ever repeat.)

Personally, I think some of the best Zelda games that have been created recently have been the for the DS. The Phantom Hourglass blew my mind with what you could do with the touchscreen and since I downloaded an illegal copy of the Spirit Tracks, I never got too far before it glitched out on me. Still, the innovation is there. Personally I think we should see gritty, open-world game like Dragon Age: Origins or Fallout: 3 (New Vegas was buggy enough to turn me off to it, even if I adore Boone and Arcade).

Is it me, or does this game have one of the most awful and uneven art directions I’ve ever seen? So many places and characters of the game look amazing, but then you have others that just look… BAD. Link’s colleague buddy with the blushing cheeks has a specially bad design, and much of the village just seems designed without a special feature, or anything distinctive about them. While I remember most of the Wind Waker characters for their distinctive and expressive features, like the big eyes, or that kid wih the snotty nose, I really can’t see anything good about most of the artstyle in this game. Zelda’s amazing, and so is Link, her dad, Beedle, the Pirate robot miniboss, the idol of many hands… but the enemies in general just look so damn… UGLY. The world characters (moles, squids and the plant things) aren’t that attractive and look like they’ve been done over lunch. And the giant tentacle monster literally looks like a big eye drawn over a white mess of tentacles, just something some kid drew on a napkin, wrote “Graaar!” and said “Here’s your design.”

I don’t know! I don’t usually complain this much, and Zelda’s one of my favorite series. Skyward Sword has some of the worst and least remembered music of the series, and no overworld. But it also has what I consider to be the best 3D dungeon designs in ANY Zelda whatsoever. So I don’t know.

I haven’t played the game myself, so I can’t really comment on Fi and her habits of speech. What I do want to comment on is my joy at seeing Ganondorf again. Seriously, ever since you first introduced him as something of a councelor for overly manly men in Commander’s organization, I’ve been hoping to see more of the guy, helping Commander with couching new clients. (Just what sort of tactics does Ganondorf use for these guys?)

Still, love seeing him again. Also, long winter coat dusters for the win!

I have zero problems with Fi or Ghirahim. I thought that some of Fi’s remarks were obvious or a little less than crucial but not at the level of being game-disrupting or maddeningly frustrating. They were usually helpful and I loved calling on her to describe characters or creatures, like a walking talking encyclopedia to enrich the mythology and knowledge about the world of zelda. If you want useless characters try the fortune teller later in the game.

A few people have complained about Fi’s uselessness during boss fights and I don’t think this is fair. During your first encounter with a boss Fi will keep saying “My analysis isn’t complete” but if you die in the battle and have to continue and face the boss a second time Fi will actually pop up and give you good hints on how to beat the guy. I wouldn’t have been able to beat Ghirahim the first time without Fi’s help. Maybe for me it’s that I saw Fi as what she was, an artificial intelligence created by “The Goddess” to help “The Hero” in all instances during his quest to save Zelda that inhabits the sword. She was a great character, I found Groose more irritating than Fi.

I have overall next to no complaints about Skyward Sword, most of my difficulty with the controls were my fault and the art design was fine by me, I enjoyed the cartoon style. It’s not trying to make The Wii into something it’s not. The music was great, and I was totally irritated by the Song of the Hero mini-quests, until I actually played them and found out they weren’t so bad. totally worth the money and the time.

I just wish we could have had some more interaction with Fi, in all honesty. She never really struck me as a character until the game was over, and that’s not fun. She really did feel like just a computer, and nothing more. Essentially, it felt like Link didn’t have a partner this time around. He had an encyclopedia that sang with awkward movements and no facial expressions.

I try so hard not to let her ruin my enjoyment of the game (I haven’t beat it yet… I don’t have a lot of time to play, okay?) but honestly, she started annoying me with just this kind of stuff less than 30 seconds after Link meets her, and I thought it would stop. You know, like Navi would eventually stop bugging you with things like “HEY! LINK! Press A to open the door!”
BUT THEN SHE DIDN’T. SHE NEVER STOPS. I’M ON THE (SECOND) LAST DUNGEON AND SHE’S STILL TELLING ME “Master, there’s an 85% chance there’s a boss hidden behind that door. You know, the one with the big fancy lock on it that looks like every other boss room lock? The one the camera pointed out to you the second you entered the room?”

(And how creepy is the ‘Master’ thing, really? She’s almost as bad as Ghirahim. At least he has the excuse of being a villain)

I calculate an 85% chance you didn’t finish the game, considering you have to do 4 silent realm challenges to even gain access to the final dungeon, which is very unique from the other dungeons in some obvious ways.

A slider puzzle dungeon may be unique, but it’s not FUN.
Besides, if at any point in a game the player has become so disengaged as to stop playing, then the game has failed its purpose. You can banter on and on about how “better” it gets, but a player should never have to wade through a mire of shit to find the diamond in the rough. A player shouldn’t feel obligated to play the game. The game should engage the player to make them WANT to keep playing the game. And if it can’t do that, then something is seriously wrong that game.

I disagree in that I think the game did a lot to compel me to want to keep playing. The plot wasn’t unpredictable, but it was grand in scale. There was never a time when I didn’t feel like I wasn’t sufficiently rewarded for my actions.

There’s never gonna be a game to please everyone. I quit playing Twilight Princess halfway through because I didn’t think all that shit was worth it…wolf segments and scavenger hunts with no real tension or apparent point behind them. But, in contrast, I pretty much played SS start to finish.

Honestly, I’m at the “break ten targets in two minutes on your bird” part and I’m thinking of turning in the towel here. It’s not fun, and the story is too lame and flat to make me feel like conquering the finnicky bird controls will be at all satisfying.

I know what part you’re talking about. Not sure if I share the sentiment since I really didn’t mind any part of the motion controls other than that I hate how the cursor starts at the center whenever you begin aiming.

If you’re really not fond of the plot and you’re not having fun, then yeah…no reason to feel compelled to keep on going. I felt the same way with TP.

The problem with the bird is mostly that you have to flick the controller to gain altitude, messing with the steering, and it will almost always overshoot in a big burst. There is no way to change altitude without coasting a significant distance away, and there’s a poor turn radius. Not terrible in the big wide open sky, but in a small area of target practice? The worst thing. If it was like “follow this trail of targets” like the Zora races in MM, no problem. As it is, it’s about as much fun as parallel parking a 20 foot Chevy Suburban in a 25 foot space was back when I got my driver’s license. Except worse, because there wasn’t a time limit on the parallel park.

It would’ve worked a lot better if flapping was the same motion you used to get our your shield. No idea why they couldn’t just delegate it to the nunchuk without requiring the remote to be moved. Wouldn’t have to mess up how you point with the remote.

You can get in a flap without really changing your course, but you sorta have to do it quickly and it’s not the best thing for the wrist.

I actually liked Ghirahim a lot, and I really enjoyed the game overall. But damn, I have to agree with you on the whole Fi thing. I played the game again on Dolphin with a cheat that disabled some of Fi’s dialogue, along with a high speed text cheat, and it made the game about 10 times better.

I adore this. Fi does get annoying, although I’m usually able to ignore her pretty well. I’m holding out hope that at some point her percentages work out against her. I mean, a 60% chance of something means there’s a 40% chance of something else.

Honestly, what bothers me the most is how when you pick up an item after opening a saved game, you’re treated to a crazy-long explanation of what said item is, the depositing into your inventory (along with the twenty or thirty other ones you already have) and otherwise screwing up your flow while you’re in the middle of being attacked by half a dozen bokoblins.

Also, I’m more than a little in love with Ghirahim’s over the top fabulousness. He makes me laugh whenever he shows up.

I’m in the “love Girahim” camp, he’s hilarious. Sure, they make porn of him, but that’s Poe’s Law and Rule 34 for you.

On a related note, little does Ganondorf know that, given exposition in Four Swords Adventures, chances are pretty damn good that Pointy Tongued Molester Man is hiding somewhere in his favorite trident, waiting for a chance to give overly detailed tutorials on how to conquer Hyrule.

I really haven’t watched any anime besides dragon ball, shaman king, rurouni kenshin and evangelion. so Ghirahim was a pretty new character for me and I really enjoyed it when he showed up. that was about the only highlight in the game for me, as far as characters go. it’s been linke 10 years and I still feel more empathy with the characters in majora’s mask.

That’s only because nowadays, people tend to be too lazy to think for themselves – at least, it seems like that. But by now, even I can hardly imagine, that there used to be times of gaming without tutorials, questlogs and stupid “you don’t saaaay…” hints to remember what to do ~ and believe it or not, all of us got along though ;))).

I wanted to add that something must’ve gone wrong in your rendition of Fi because I actually think she’s kinda cute there whereas the one in the game creeps the fuck out for some reason I can’t put my finger on.

Sometimes I open the comments page for my site and all I can see is “blah blah blah blah blah” and I close the window and put my head down on my desk and wonder why I do this. And then I go back to staying up until 5AM working on comics for people to complain about.

ah, back to the whole french/english spelling debate again, i give up but it was spelled incorrectly either way. and i suppose its really bad form of me to nitpick considering i love this comic so much. i’ll stfu now.

Good lord, this game seems to be polarizing. As someone who is not, never has been, and never will be interested in Zelda in any form, I enjoy just standing back and laughing as all the fanboys come out of the woodwork to defend the game. Sorry folks. Just because it’s made by the Almighty Nintendo, Nintendo be His Name, doesn’t mean bad game design somehow becomes good game design. Repeated messages or cutscenes that you can’t skip is bad game design. Period.

I could post a comic about airplane food and get comments telling me airplane food is perfect and if I don’t like it I just shouldn’t eat it. Turning this comic into the sprinkles and hand holding happy hour to make everybody content would result in a website about as interesting as soggy toast.

Oh, sprinkles and hand holding is stupid. But there are better ways of expressing anger at and calling people stupid than sexual profanity; its the use of terms like “jerking off to” I’m protesting, not the sentiment that represents. I don’t mean diplomatic as in holding hands, I just mean diplomatic in the sense of no potty mouth.

For the first question, I, erroneously, thought it was evident in the statement (I often have such difficulties getting my point across). For the second, excessive hand holding is kinda sorta the thing that this particular comic is making fun of.

you just might be the one to introduce the word “excessive” here.
just sayin. and, again, i will flat out say this. if you have a problem with profanity, say so. i, for one, can speak without it. i obviously don’t prefer it, but i can do it.

You know, last time I checked, most if not all of this comic and website’s humor is biting, sarcastic, and controversial. That’s it’s charm. If you don’t like that style of funny, then this website is not for you, period. You can’t laugh at it when it’s about something you hate and then turn around and get angry when she mocks something you actually like. One person’s opinion of something shouldn’t change your own, so if you enjoy Skyward Sword, have fun playing it and then laugh at the comic and comments’ jokes as an example of clever wordplay. Why is this so hard?

I’m sorry, but almost every comment on here is people agreeing with this and hating fi, even those who loved the game (like me). So I think you’re kinda just spouting a bunch of crap now.

No one’s defending nintendo either. The wii is easily the worst quality system in terms of games and most consider games like skyward sword a saving grace, not because its made by nintendo, but because it’s actually good. But what would I know? It’s not like i’m some guy who’s never played a zelda game but still is able to claim it has poor design. (btw, cutscenes are skippable in SS) :D

A lot of people who complain about the game ARE Nintendo fanboys. The problem with Zelda games is that its own fans like to hold the series up to impossibly high standards. The purist Zelda fan is the Zelda fan who wants a game that does everything as good or better than Ocarina of Time, but is somehow completely new and original. They want the game to be identical but different.

I think it’s a bit unfair to disregard anyone who disagrees with your opinion as a fanboy who worships anything Miyamoto brushes against. That’s borderline elementary school bully logic. I don’t like the game because it’s a Nintendo game, I like the game because I think it’s a different direction for the series and because I think it’s well-designed. Semi-frequent interruptions by a companion who states the obvious only registers as a minor annoyance to me.

If you don’t want people to disagree with you, then you probably shouldn’t express your opinion about anything.

Wind Waker seems to be one that people hated before it came out based on the style alone and the expectations they had after the Zelda demo that Nintendo used to show off the Gamecube’s abilities, but once people actually played it they more or less seemed to enjoy it (with a few standing grievances such as “too much sailing” and “not enough dungeons”)

That’s the way it works for just about every Zelda game. Pretty much all of them are received positively, but each game seems to have a vocal bunch of folks who don’t like it for whatever reason. You can find plenty of folks online who claim that Ocarina of Time is the worst thing to happen to the series. Wind Waker is one of the most unfairly judged though…simply because there are so many people who are bias against the character designs.

There are people who hated Wind Waker because of the visual style and because they didn’t like sailing. Then they made Twilight Princess and there are people who hate that because of wolf segments and a shitty Ganondorf. Then they made Skyward Sword and there are people who hate that because of Fi and a smaller overworld.

It’s like a never-ending cycle of ‘Okay, we got these people to like it…but now all these people don’t like it.’

Welcome to being a fan of anything ever. More popular and notable=larger and more vocal people in the “didn’t like it” part of the population, as more get exposure and more get hype backlash when they didn’t enjoy what they feel like everybody is praising. Its annoying for everybody on every side, but it isn’t wrong per se.

Every game will always have its small band of haters, albeit quite a few are haters of the series/company masquerading as disgruntled fanboys. My only complaint is that there is not enough Malon/Romani & Cremia in the series My favourite characters.

I kinda like the whole gibberish language thing. I think it’s a smart way of giving a character a unique voice without actually having to dub him/her (if you played Ookami i’m sure you will agree with me). Still, Fi is annoying and creepy. Also, why does she have to ballet around the room when she ‘remembers the words of the goddess’??
And Demise? Sure, he looks badass and all, but am i the only one who thought he was battling Akuma from street fighter?

“The one chosen by my creator. I have been waiting for you. You will play a role in a great destiny. I was created for a single purpose, long before the recorded memory of your people. That purpose is to treat you like a noob for the remainder of your journey which has been predetermined to be forever since we can just reincarnate your ass when ever you die.”

OH GOD this is perfect.
Every workday, when I was not play Skyward Sword, I kept ranting to my coworkers about how Fi would tell me the most obvious shit ever. ‘scuse me while I forward this to them as an example.

Bleh, let’s just make another 2D Zelda game. That way you won’t need a Z-Targeting system, and thus no guide. Right on back to Nintendo Hard. Scooting your way through Death Mountian in the first Zelda game was an actual accomplishment.

My spam filter catches comments with like 90% similar text to other posts or something. It’s a staple spam tactic to just copy the text of other comments and repaste it with a new user name and a website URL like “freetreadmills.com”.

i hear and understand you, but my brain kind of breaks on the whole “hee hee” thing. i honestly cannot remember anyone even remotely posting something similar. but hey, thanks for clearing that up for me. i also kind of break myself on how my name randomly decides whether it wants to post properly or not.
in any case, thank you for for this web comic. now. about those free treadmills … :D

um, hi. This is probably a non issue already, but you actually posted “hee hee” earlier the same day (according to the time stamp) It’s up there, just before the discussion about diplomacy vs. potty mouth.
maybe the time stamp’s wrong though… Iunno

i’m aware of that, the thing is i got it the first time i posted that too, then came back to give an example of it. does that clear things up a little?
(no irony or offense meant) so my initial comment got me redirected saying it was too similar. weird huh? i went ahead and clicked the submit anyways button then came back to try to figure it out .. still no clue why my use of arial font sometimes breaks my username too. the timestamp is probably actually accurate. in any case, thank you for trying to help :)

If someone’s already said this, then I guess I’m just repeating. I got bored reading all the Fi hate/love.

Ghirahim is annoying because Fi is annoying. *SPOILERS* They are both tools of their Masters. Literally. Ghirahim is the mirror image of Fi (the hair over one eye, the leotard, the attitude, etc.) because he’s Demise’s dark weapon.

Imagine how it must have been for Demise, considering how on and on and on Ghirahim can go about how much he hates Link, how much he wants to serve Demise and how he can’t wait to kill in the name of his Master, etc.

*Demise is about to attack Hylia*
Ghirahim: “Push A to swing.”
Demise: “I KNOW HOW TO FIGHT.”
Ghirahim: “Let me spill blood for you, Master. Delicious, innocent blood! I’ll even set a dowsing target for more blood for you!”
Demise: ~sigh~

*During the fight with Hylia*
Ghirahim: “You are low on Hearts, oh Wonderous, Gracious Master.”
Ghirahim: “I suggest we find more innocent Hearts to devour!”
Demise (to Hylia): “Just kill me now and get it over with.”
Goddess: “It never stops. You should see this other sword I made …”

I mean, that’s exactly how I coped with watching my wife play Skyward Sword. Once they revealed what Ghirahim was (or at least when I figured it out), I was thinking to myself, “Man, I bet Demise wanted to break that damn sword over his knee half way through his fight with the Goddess.”

I think you meant “rogue” and not the color rouge. But that is still hilarious either way.

But yes. That’s a big reveal near the end. It’s how Ghirahim can touch/counter Link’s sword in all its incarnations with just his hands. He is Demise’s weapon, and his appearance mirrors Fi’s. So I can only imagine that when he’s wielded by Demise, he’s talking to Demise like Fi talks to Link.

I’m sorry but, that’s not a trident. It’s a running Smash Bros joke that he always has that huge ass sword to pose with, but never uses it (because he’s just a Captain Falcon clone).

I would bet that the real reason he has a trident in four swords and no other game because Nintendo writes their stories as an afterthought after the playable parts of their games and doesn’t care about continuity half as much as people want to pretend they do.

I’m not referring to the Smash Bros sword, I’m referring to the weapon that he’s been using in boss battles since day 1, though only in 2D games. The one he wielded in the original game, Link to the Past, his appearance in the Oracle games, etc.

In Skyward Sword, Ghirahim is Demise’s sword. He’s the exact opposite of Fi, who becomes the Master Sword that every Link afterwards uses. Demise is the demon that is reincarnated as Ganon, etc. in every Zelda story to come. Thus, Ghirahim is the true opposite of the Master Sword, but can take many forms. Gives me a headache, really.

Fi was nothing, NOTHING, compared to the way the game highlights every single upgrade item and/or bug you catch, shows you 5 seconds of text, then 3 seconds of it incrementing in your inventory screen.

God help you if you’re in the middle of 150 bokoblins (also, WTF is with the bokoblins? Was there no room on the disc for other monster models? What happened to Tektites and moving Octoroks and Goriyas and Ghinis and Poes and Darknuts and deadly gigantic Peahats and those flying eyeballs that drop fireballs on you from Adventure of Link?) and one of them drops a monster claw… Link stops, does the “Oooo, looky here!” pose with that brain-damaged smile, while in the backdrop you can SEE 30 bokoblins all with their clubs in the air and you know… you KNOW… that when the game FINALLY releases you from that 8-second time-freeze, that you’re going to be facing completely the wrong way and you are going to take a hit.

And in Hero Mode, losing hearts means you pretty much have to find a bench to sit on or waste your potion, ’cause you’re not going to find more.

I’m afraid i’m going to have to mark you down though because I think you’re thinking of Dune. Blade Runner was Rutger Hauer, who I will admit was also blonde, rocking a cleant but punkish look and incredibly pretty, if a bit more introspective than your average knife wielding madman.

Dune had Sting. In a armoured speedo. In an armoured knife fighting speedo. It’s worth watching for the novelty of this closing act.

I think the problem with Ghirahim is that Nintendo wanted us to think he was demonic and viperous, wanting to eat souls and drink the blood of the innocent. The presentation, however, came out more, “creepy, over-sexualized stalker who has a tongue like that guy in KISS.”

I mean, I got that Nintendo was trying to convey that Ghirahim was a demonic sweet-talking snake. Looking back on the way he talks when he shows his tongue and the innuendo … yeah, I can see how he came off more as a sexual deviant.

I’ve played a lot of the Zelda series, but no guide has ever annoyed me as much as Fi does. I totally quit noticing Navi’s ‘hey listen’ early on in OOT, so she never bothered me. Fi got on my nerves to no end. It doesn’t help that her little beepy sound comes from the Wiimote instead of the game, which I found imposible to ignore and which tugged me straight out of the game every single time it happened. I will admit she did give useful advice every so often, but I’d still choose Navi or Midna over her any day (and Tatl over any of them).

You can reduce the volume of your wiimote from the house button options.

I did that for some other game, I can’t remember which. I think it was for Silent Hill because it scared the crap out of me every time it went off, or it just ended up being annoying. Maybe both. Being annoyed and scared shitless is a very confusing feeling.

I would NOT be shocked to hear that the F1=Fi connection was intentional. After Other M (Mother) being such an overt play on words for Nintendo’s other franchise, seeing such a meaningless blunder being forced into Zelda is hardly out of the realm of possibility.

And Ugh! I actually hate this new Zelda game. I’ve never hated a Zelda game! I even liked that shitty Phantom Hourglass one! It’s like the game is paranoid that I might get lost for 10 seconds, so it keeps screaming at me to pay attention! The last time I played it, I tried spiting the game by saying “no, I got this without your help, game” and keep playing without using the Dowsing option. “Too bad!” the game responded and it proceeded to beep at me for 20 minutes straight while I hunted for some key parts. The only reason it stopped beeping was because I needed to look at something in first-person and that happened to be the same button as the Dowsing button. Oops! You win this time Game!

Just out of curiosity, what do you mean by “worst part of Phantom Hourglass” and “worst part of Twilight Princess”? I have a terrible memory of my past gaming experience (all I recall is being the chicken in Kakariko Village and hiding the fuck away from those evil armor dudes).

Fi didn’t annoy me that much – holding A makes her text appear faster, so there goes that problem. The little chime was barely noticeable, especially on my Hero Mode where I got hit way too often and had the worst sound in game going for about half of it, though I do think that for Hero Mode at least there should have been an OFF option.

A few days of reading this thread and I’ve realized that Nintendo will keep making these as long as it keeps making money, which it does. All we can do is complain and criticize or defend and laud and make hilarious parodies and jokes. The internet is the ultimate love/hate relationship, if a bit schizophrenic.

Well, of course. Why would they stop? The vast majority of people like the games, they almost always receive strong critical praise, and they’ve always, of course, made oodles of cash. Even the weakest of the series, I think, is good enough to be worth playing. When it comes to Zelda, the fans are the ones who are the most divided…but I think it’s good that a community has so many conflicting opinions and ideas. People like to argue about Zelda because there’s a lot of argue about. It keeps people interested. It gets to the point where years of fan debate about a possible timeline actually prompted Nintendo to make a real timeline.

The only Zelda I’ve played that I’d say is outright ‘bad’ would be Phantom Hourglass. There’s one reason for it and everyone who’s played it probably knows why.

I forget who it was that said Nintendo could make a game out of Mario just going around shitting on things and the fanboys would still insist it was a perfect game ten stars A+, but they pretty much hit the nail on the head.

No, then they would complain that it wasn’t a real Mario game, it didn’t play right, etc. They’d still buy absolutely vast quantities, of course, but they wouldn’t rate it highly.

Although, not quite the same sales as otherwise; Metroid Other M shows that there IS a line past which the fanboys dip in buying from “A NEW RECORD” down to “juust makes the top ten list for the month, then quickly dips off the radar to disappointing sales figures”.

That’s old meme regarding Nintendo fans; about as old and moldly as “Nintendo is teh kiddie”.

If anything, ‘tendo fans are the most argumentative, bitchy geeks around. Just about. The reason why major Nintendo games still sell well isn’t because of fanboys, but in spite of them. The average person who isn’t a bitchy gamer dork recognizes quality, buys the game, has fun, that’s it.

It’s the actual fans who whine about how every new game isn’t exactly like they want it to be, Nintendo has destroyed the series forever, etc etc. They’re squeaky wheels and create the impression that the whole train is about to go off the rails. But it never happens.

I feel like Nintendo’s core properties are going the way of Disney and WB’s. They’ve got a lot of iconic characters that they’re basically coasting on for nostalgia and not handling particularly intuitively anymore. I feel like they’re trying to make something “different from what it was” but instead of being trailblazing, now that just means “the same as something else” or “so gimmicky it stopped being fun”. The Escapist did an article asking kids who are theoretically Nintendo’s core demographic how they felt about Nintendo, Mario, etc, and really, they didn’t care. One kid wanted an Xbox and the other liked the DS more for it’s fake-smart-phone-for-ten-year-olds properties than its games, neither really cared about the iconic characters. I would bet the majority of Nintendo plushies and hoodies and all that merch being bought up these days is by nostalgic 20-30-something year olds, either for themselves or their kids that they want to indoctrinate into the fandom. I doubt that the younger generation coming up now is going to feel as passionate about Nintendo’s IPs as people who grew up playing them in the 80’s and 90’s do. I’m not sure how easy it will be for them to net nostalgia sales when today’s crop of kids grows up.

When today’s crop grows up, there will still be nostalgia, but not for the same stuff that we were nostalgic for. Naturally, we’re going to find what they’re nostalgic about stupid and petty and badly made and everything was much better in OUR day, clinging to the remnants of our nostalgia the way an aging hippie does to radio stations that still mostly play music from the 1960s and 1970s.

We’re around the tail end of the viable “it really is as good as we remember it and it does well because it being revolutionary is fresh in our minds” period and starting on the “old codger clinging to his childhood in ignorance/refusal of the next new thing, too much older to care or find interest in what the kids like” period, if not a few steps into the latter. In 20 years, the younguns of today will be in the exact same boat with the next generation of media consumers.

Oh, I don’t think nostalgia is going to stop existing, but I don’t think the new crop of kids are going to care as much about Mario and Link as they will about, say, Master Chief, sackboy, Marcus Fenix, Kratos, Ezio, all the popular dudes today. Even the kids who are too young to be playing some of those games are looking up and wanting to play them. I doubt there’s going to be a lot of future fan fevour for Nintendogs, and Brain Age.

Oh, of course, except possibly senior citizen nostalgia from the target audience of middle aged women, pardon my stereotyping. But they will develop nostalgia for things strange to us, things we may and probably will consider “silly” or “okay” (of that list, only Kratos and Ezio have any appeal to me, for instance; you-make-it games and shooters never really developed any appeal for me or any of my social circle, seeming to be that new thing that wasn’t as good even years ago).

Mario and Zelda games will and do continue to be made past the cyclical turning point in much the same way that the Rolling Stones still go on tour, or at least did until recently.

Well, the people who are 20 to 30 years old now are the ones with the money. So trying to maintain the IPs that will tap that money through nostalgia.

In all honesty, I think the problem with Nintendo rehashing the same brands over and over again is because they keep promoting people within the company who only worked on those brands. They don’t know how to create a NEW IP. If they did, I’m pretty sure we would have seen it by now. Once Nintendo is forced to put people in charge who have no emotional connection to the old IPs, things will change. And hopefully that happens before Nintendo goes bankrupt from being boring.

i heard other m was terrible its for sale at gamestop for like…..9.99$ i believe, i went to get a new copy of Mario Galaxy 2 and almost got Metriod as well, should i go back next pay day and shell out ten bucks for it? whyzzit so cheap?

Because it destroys everything you ever liked about Samus Aran. It’s like Nintendo suddenly realized she was breaking female stereotypes for 20-some years and has decided to make up for lost time. I don’t object to fleshing out her back story and personality, but she goes from being a Sarah-Conner-in-T2 hardcore badass to Bereaved Woman who Can’t Cope and must be saved repeatedly by Great Sacrifices on the parts of the male characters in the game. Oh, and the whole independent bounty hunter thing? Yeah, we’re gonna toss that out, too, and make her a freelance soldier who obeys every order she’s given to the letter, despite those orders needlessly blocking her progress and putting her life (and the lives of everyone around her) in danger repeatedly.

LOL; this is the kind of bitter resentment that makes fanboys of a series warp and twist things they dislike into monstrosities.

People built their own fannish idea of what Samus Aran was in their head. The producer of the series did his own thing. Fans cry bitter tears, but that’s what can happen when you obsess over a character that isn’t your own.

As for the bounty hunter bit, makes sense to me. Just because you’re a bounty hunter doesn’t mean you’re outside the law. You go in with a government team, dude in charge tells you to play by their rules or *leave now*. You choose to play by the rules so you can stay. People just complain about this because it supports their narrative about how nothing in the game “makes sense”.

I thought that game was outsourced to a third party company, the ones who made Dead Or Alive Beach Volleyball. Not a group of folks renowned for their writing or tactful handling of female characters. Extra Credits did a wonderful episode dissecting the game and pointing out some of the things we should learn from how poorly it was handled.

Other M was developed by a team consisting of both people from Nintendo and people from Team Ninja. Team Ninja does make Dead or Alive though. Kinda like how some of the portable Zelda titles were made by both Capcom and Nintendo employees.

Most of the blame for Samus’ characterization was placed on Yoshio Sakamoto, who directed the game. He apparently had this big vision of where he wanted to take the game in terms of plot and characterization…basically wanted Other M to be a more story-based game. He only roped in Team Ninja because he loved their work on Ninja Gaiden.

A lot of people interpreted it as an attempt to appeal more to a Japanese audience. Metroid has always had more influence in the west. I’m hoping that Nintendo just forgets Other M ever happened.

They should have figured they’d be alienating someone either way. Frankly, I think they should have just let Metroid be the western series and take a good thing for what it is. I mean, people always talk about how Nintendo’s game stories and characters are so formulaic and repetitive, but this is what they do when they try to change things too much.

Oh by the way, Metroid Prime’s the one that never happened, so sayeth Nintendo.

Am i the only one who noted that the captain shaved? Oh, and while im here having read the entire comments page in on sitting and having played the game i am now torn on how I feel about fi, Ya she is rather annoying but I did not play the game for her.

It’s kinda funny how many comments are all for defending GAYarim.
I’m not that far into the game (first temple, lol), but I already made the comment to my wife about every anime rolled into the game (especially right before Zelda gets abducted, when she says, “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you…” I said, “What do you wanna bet she gets abducted next?”)
Here’s my Zelda joke of the day…
“I see you are using the Internet. I sense an 85% probability of ‘arrow to the knee’ jokes”

I think the main point here would be that you need the ability to turn off the tutorial part of the game. As well as having skippable cut scenes. Having to read through wave after wave of text or performing basic tasks that you already know is detrimental to a game regardless of it’s genre. Slapping in a teaching character who gives you advice along the way doesn’t get rid of the tutorial section, it just extends it. If you’ve got a good one no one notices it. Hell, take Portal, the whole game is a tutorial and no one complains, because it was well done. There’s no need to make a tutorial into a long draw out snooze fest.

Also Blah blah blah, poorly constructed argument and rambling incoherent, I think I’ve made my baseless point that no one will understand or care for.

Naw, I agree. If they made it like any other zelda game where you can hold A and skim the text, it would’ve been so much better. I think they’re trying to do this forced text speed thing to try to produce the same effect as voice actors who can change their vocal inclinantion, and I know they have their whole “We don’t want to alienate people by giving characters voices they don’t like” thing, but I think they’re really reaching the point where they have to bite the bullet and record some lines.

I’ve been waiting for a comic about this. She reminds a lot of people of Navi, I think. I didn’t catch the connection to the infamous paperclip, though! It’s pretty clever.
I also like how Ganondorf is one of the ones to sympathize. Great comic. c:

I just really wanted to say like two things: 1, I think SS is hilareous in all of its flaws. Seriously, interpretive dance, Leotards, flamboyant characters, pompadours? Zelda’s always had an odd sense of humour, this is no different.
2, If you give me enough time and the power of the internet, I swear that I can find you a legion of rabid fans who will rip your head off if you say the wrong thing about their particular series. I know a friend who would kill me if I said anything bad about Kefka. Or Girahim. Not surprising she likes both.

The game is riddled with issues but the story’s not half bad, added a good backstory to the whole genre and flying? That’s pretty awesome too.

But anywho, love your comics Coela! Thanks for dealing with the rapid fan boys so well!

The game doesn’t tell ya how to use the bow when you get it. Fi is actually the first thing in the game that explains it to you, so it isn’t really being redundant. Other than that, the heart thing, and the skulltula thing pretty accurate.

Actually, I’m pretty sure they tell you twice. I remember being annoyed that (again) Fi manages to tells you something you just found out 5 seconds ago. Secondly, most people don’t even need to be told once. You get the bow far enough along in the game that – given that the controls are the exact same for the slingshot and the beetle – you should be able to figure it out on your own, even if you haven’t played any other Zelda game. And if you have played any of the other 3D games, then you really have no excuse, because using the bow is basically the same no matter which one you’re talking about. Press a/b/x/y to select the bow, press again to fire.

What’s worse is that Zelda actually has a personality and she’s only got, what, 10 minutes of screentime until she’s blasted off into the void? Granted at least she isn’t just straight-up kidnapped right out, but frankly from the sounds of things so far, following HER adventures would have been the more fun game.

“You look like you’re attempting to kill yourself, but if you try to slit your own throat with your sword I only detect a 32% chance of success. Would you like me to compile a list of suicide options with a higher success rate?”

I’m glad I’m not the only one who doesn’t like Fi. I honestly couldn’t stand her. Just because she’s an “AI” doesn’t mean that she has to have such a lack of personality. At first, I just thought she was boring. Then she started to get really irritating. By the time I reached the Ancient cistern and they showed the close-up of the chest with the boss key in it, I was ready to throttle her. “HEY I THINK THERE’S SOMETHING IMPORTANT IN THAT CHEST.” No. Really. I never would’ve fucking guessed.

Also her dancing sort of got on my nerves due to the lack-of-personality bit. If she’d been a bubbly, genki-girl-type character, I would’ve been fine with it, because it would’ve made sense. But with no personality whatsoever, her dancing just came off as very out-of-place. Perhaps it’s not my place to say the whole thing was out-of-character since I didn’t design her, but when she’s got no character to begin with, well…

And her whole “I think I am experiencing happiness” thing at the very end of the game is the worst for how forced it feels. They really could’ve tried to show her warming up to you throughout the game and becoming less like a robot, but instead they shoehorn it in. Honestly, that scene just annoyed me more.

The only useful thing she did was let me know what my Wiimote batteries were low, but even the usefulness of that was negated once I started trying to avoid talking to her for fear of her telling me more incredibly obvious shit.

My two favorite LoZ companions will always be Midna and Tatl. Honestly, I even like Navi better than Fi. Sure, “HEY! LOOKS! LISTEN!” was annoying, but at least you could ignore Navi throughout pretty much the entire game.

The Wiimote battery thing was useless considering how the Motion Plus screws with the wiis sensitivity to the batteries. From the time she started bugging me to change my batteries to the time the batteries actually died, I got about eight hours of play time. And considering they ALSO have a red blinking battery warning at the bottom of the screen the whole time, eh.

If she could help me dowse around my apartment for loose batteries, sure, we’re in business.

Honestly, if I wanted to see anything in a Zelda game? A game where Ganondorf isn’t an enemy, rather, an ally. I think it’d be a great ‘break our old cycle’ storyline – he, despite being evil, has a couple redeeming traits none the less, and I could see him potentially breaking away from what he has been in the past… or at least having to work with Link to deal with something they would both consider signifigantly worse than each other.

I’ve always wanted to see a Zelda game with an adult theme like “the promise of limitless power was the fucking problem all along”.
Part1: You start the game as Link, play for a while fighting Gannon, saving the princess, getting the repetitive items, leading up to getting the Triforce of Courage.
Part 2: Play as a recently rescued Zelda, who goes out to figure shit out, reaquire the Triforce of Wisdom that Gannon hid away or something. During the confrontation with Gannon, it becomes blindingly obvious that the problem is that he (and Zelda and Link) are being played and corrupted by their respective Triforces. Go back in time and find a way to break the Triforces of Power’s hold on everyone, but only manage to free Gannon before being possessed herself.
Part 3: Play as a recently exorcised Gannon. Find the person who can assemble the Triforce. Retrieve the Triforces from Link and Zelda (epic reverse boss fights), give them to the person who can assemble them and wish it to destroy itself.

Does it fit with Zelda lore? No. But Zelda lore is a mess that should never have been cobbled together into a single plot anyway. Is it something Nintendo would ever dare to do with one of their legacy IPs? No. It would alienate tons of diehards. It would also be something Nintendo rarely does — Something new.

although Fi does get in the way alot, just like Navi, you’d be lost without her. I can’t remember how many times I lost to Ghirahim, but as soon as I hit Up on the D-pad, I learned how to get free when he grabs your sword.

I *KNEW* that Fi must be somehow related to that INFURIATING paper clip guy in Microsoft Word.

But, to be fair, I think that Fi is the result of the Nintendo people being terrified about people hating the motion controls (which most of us are lukewarm about at best) and therefore feeling like they have to add some character that will be as DETAILED AS POSSIBLE if you keep pressing “help” menus. That said, the character comes off a lot more like Rei from Evangalion than anything else. It’s the “stoic, slim and rational/unfeeling” anime girl trope. Although, I’ve been listening to the soundtrack from the game lately a lot and I really love Fi’s theme.

Back in my day we didn’t have all of these assistants. Link was given nothing and there were no owls, no fairies, no talking swords. Over time they’ve been treating Link like more and more like a moron. Guess I’ll add this to the list as to why I won’t get this game… right after “probably similar to Twilight Princess”. God, I hated that game.

Fi is a part of nintendo’s weird campaign to make games piss easy. In both the new mario and donkey kong games, if you mess up a bunch, you can just get a bot to finish the level for you. In skyward sword, and the orcarina of time remake for the DS, there are weird stones where, if you get stuck, you can just get the next step from them. They give you most of the secrets in the game ‘just cuz’.

Fi is pretty much a game long tutorial. Nintendo has, for some reason, made the assumption that I am too inept to figure out how to do the most basic of things.

“Looks like you’re in a dungeon. I detect an 85% chance you should explore it.”

Well shit! I’m glad you told me, I was gonna go back out in the woods and walk around for 3 hours!

She is MEANT to help really slow players, but what she ends up doing is becoming a detriment to anyone who has ever played a video game.

One last thing that irks me;

The monster stuck in the ground from that first area. He’s built up as this really awful, evil monster who looks cool and scary and has lots of teeth. But uh. He looks like a muppet when you first face him. Just a really silly design.

I just turned off the game and went to this comic. This is exactly why I just turned the damn game off. Everyone needs to replay from the Cistern to the end of the Pirate Ship and see how much of an exaggeration this is. Protip: it’s not.

With Navi you had a choice to pull up her menu after the first freaking temples ended. Yeah, she rang “hey” now and then but it was so easy to ignore. How do you ignore a woman stopping you and with crawling text when you can’t continue walking? Throughout the entire goddamn game? Fi… Making me slowly want to put down this game that I am enjoying.

On another note for some cool story bro: It’s interesting to see the comic creator involved with the discussions. I normally see the creator just put the forum up and not have any involvement. I der know, I think it’s cool that the creator actually comes back to talk. Also I realized I think that Coelasquid looks like Jonesy in my mind apparently ._.;

Finally, i must atgree with the points made here. One thing that really pisses me off, is when i see my sword chiming thinking fi’s got useful to say, only for her to tell me i need to find more hearts…Oh really!?, ya think captain obvious!? My only complaint about this page was that link didn’t flip out on her xD

Midna and the king of red lions will always be my favorites and atleast ezlo was amusing enough(to me) to tolerate him. fi is so far just barely above dislike for me;.

Accurate description, but I still enjoyed the game regardless. IMO it’s up there with Majora’s Mask and Wind Waker as my favorite Zelda games. I’m hoping for the next game they do at least add in an option to turn off the helper character’s speech if you don’t want it.

Reasonably accurate, but I just tried not to let it bother me. I was less successful at this with the “You got a *Monster Claw*!” stuff in the middle of combat; I actually took to just leaving my Wii paused until I came back to play it later, since it only does that for the first one after you reload. Waste of money for the electricity, but it probably saved me money on psychiatric treatment!

I liked Navi because we had that game since I can remember and she felt like your only constant friend in the world (what with all your other allies dead/kidnapped/FROZEN/ninja’d/in another dimentsion), I HATED Tatl, because why should I care about you and your brother who are helping my nemesis, I liked Midna for her sass and because she was just stone cold at the beginning of TP, and I found Fi annoying because she’s a robot. The actual robot in that game has better characterization than your sword spirit. WTF, Hylia?

“Lets combine the worst part of Phantom Hourglass with the worst part of Twilight Princess and make you do it like three times” … Clearly, with the “three times,” this is referring to The Imprisoned, which I agree was a terrible game mechanic. However, I’m somewhat at a loss as to the perception of the worst parts of Phantom Hourglass and Twilight Princess. I’ve played both of these games (granted it’s been a long while since I last played PH, though) but I can’t really come up with either. Anyone have some insight?